1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computerized networked medical system, and in particular to a method for monitoring and reporting errors occurring in the operation of the system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, the status of a complex networked medical system is determined as an aggregate of the status of a number of sub-components of the system (sub-routines of a computer program) and is displayed to the user at a workstation within the system as an overall status. Typically colors are used to indicate the status, with displayed information or icons in red indicating an error, displayed information or icons in yellow indicating a warning, and displayed information or icons displayed in green indicating an operational (OK) status. The sub-components can be individual processes, particular applications, with each application being composed of a number of processes, hardware components and service routines. These sub-components can be logically (hierarchically) grouped in order to allow them to be more easily surveyed in total by an administrator or a service technician.
An example of the type of system display that can be conventionally presented is shown in FIG. 1. Typically, if an error or malfunction occurs anywhere within the system, the entirety of the displayed information is presented in red. A problem that exists in this conventional approach that in highly complex systems for example a PACS, the failure of one sub-component does not necessarily mean that the overall system is non-operational. For example, a failure of an automatic software distributor does not necessarily preclude the service of the system to undertake a diagnostic medical finding based on imaging data or other information acquired via a medical imaging modality. Recognition of this fact, however, requires a relatively detailed knowledge of the overall system of operation, which is normally not possessed by the average user of such a system.
In the example of the system architecture shown in FIG. 1, the displayed information may be presented in red, indicating a faulty status, because the status of the sub-component “system service” is faulty. From this displayed representation, a user cannot determine the effect that the failure (inoperativeness) of the “system service” sub-component has on the overall system, and which other sub-component (use cases) are unable to be executed and which sub-components are still functional. Only an experienced user who can proceed through a relatively elaborate or complicated diagnostic routine can make such a conclusion. The average system user normally cannot recognize these dependencies, or lack of dependencies.